


can i be the kid for your soul to keep?

by alesford



Series: our family of choice [20]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Past Child Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, References to Depression, Season 3 Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 04:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: Sometimes sadness creeps up on you like a looming shadow that you don’t notice until it towers over you, blocking out the warmth and the light. Sometimes you can see it coming from a mile away, slow and steady like an impending storm that is set on a collision course for your heart and mind, ready to devastate you whether you're ready or not.Belle isn't ready for it. She doesn't expect it. It knocks her on her ass and leaves her there to cope. Her family reminds her that she doesn't have to do it alone.Please read the tags.





	can i be the kid for your soul to keep?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sensitive_pigeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitive_pigeon/gifts).



> This wasn't meant to become this long of a thing.
> 
> Obviously I'm still working through my own Jolene-related feelings.
> 
> But this work isn't about me and it isn't for me. It's for the lovely pigeon that deserves all the love in the world. I hope this helps, pidge. Remember that you aren't alone.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Please read the tags._  
>  **CW & TW: Past Child Abuse; Referenced Child Abuse; Depression**

 

**can i be the kid for your soul to keep?**

_some of us laugh, some of us cry_  
_some of us smoke, some of us lie_  
_but it’s all in the way_  
_that we cope with our lives_  
_\- ‘some of us’ by starsailor_

 

 

Sometimes sadness creeps up on you like a looming shadow that you don’t notice until it towers over you, blocking out the warmth and the light. Sometimes you can see it coming from a mile away, slow and steady like an impending storm that is set on a collision course for your heart and mind, ready to devastate you whether you're ready or not.

 

But other times—

—other times, it’s like fifty thousand volts to your system, jarring and unexpected. It quickens your breath and maybe makes your heart skip a beat. It paralyzes you and suddenly you’re on the ground and writhing in pain.

 

It’s a sudden sort of sadness.

 

No one kind of sadness is more or less devastating than any other. Hurt shouldn’t be quantified, measured, and compared. A statistic for triage that says one person’s grief is more valid or worse than another’s.

 

Sadness is sadness, and it can be fucking debilitating.

 

Belle is familiar with sadness of all kinds. The unexpected launch into darkness that leaves you empty and cold, the unstoppable and unavoidable deluge that leaves you shivering, and the kind that arrives out of the blue and floors you the second it’s upon you.

 

It doesn’t make sense, her friends say — as if it’s friendly and useful advice — that Belle could be depressed with two awesome moms like Waverly and Nicole. Greg and Vanessa and Mateo point out that her mama, aunt, and uncle all work for a special government agency. They remark that her mom is sheriff and nobody really remembers what happened to the Fullers anyways.

 

Except Alice knows and Jamie seems to understand; Belle remembers.

 

Belle remembers the anger in her papa’s voice. The times he called her stupid and useless and a good-for-nothin’ waste of space. She remembers the sound of an open palm against her ma’s cheek. Remembers her ma’s bitter stares and accusations that everything shitty about their life was her fault.

 

She remembers the gnawing feeling of hunger, of desperate hoarding when she came across anything within the realm of edible. Remembers a refrigerator empty save for beer and liquor. A pantry with nothing but canned goods that she couldn’t open let alone heat up for herself. She remembers feeling as starved for attention as she was for nourishment.

 

Nourishment of the soul, Belle supposes.

 

And she remembers the sting of the electrical cord attached to the small, 13” television that stayed on their kitchen table in perpetuity. Her papa had grabbed the set one night and swung it at her ma. It was the cord that caught Belle across the face, splitting skin from the corner of her jaw to the bridge of her nose. She remembers the pain and she remembers telling herself not to cry because then her papa might actually try to hit her on purpose. She remembers finding a kitchen rag and crawling beneath the sink, holding the dirty cloth against torn and bleeding skin.

 

She was four.

 

It didn’t leave a scar.

 

Not one that anybody can see.

 

(Books are way better than TV shows, anyways.)

 

Before she went to live with her moms, Belle learned three important lessons. One, words can hurt as much as fists and sometimes even worse. Two, not all adults are good and not all adults should be trusted. Three, blood and kin don’t mean much at all if they refuse to even see you.

 

When she went to live with Waverly and Nicole, she wore her sorrow like an armored shell. Not because she wanted to do so but because she didn’t have anything else to wrap around her, to keep her safe if not warm. Love was a foreign concept to her.

 

But then Waverly and Nicole—

—Nicole and Waverly. They brought her into their home and they let her read their books and play with Calamity Jane and eat maltesers and ice cream. They gave her Alice and Wynonna and Doc and Dolls and Jeremy. Nedley, too. They gave her friends and allies and _family._ And Nicole chased away the monsters and Waverly talked her through her demons and Alice punched any kid who ever looked at her funny or said something stupid.

 

And slowly. Slowly but surely, the shell was chipped away and replaced with love and security and a warmth that carried her forward in life. Always forward.

 

Because when she had bad days, she learned that she wasn’t alone.

 

_We’re never alone when we fight our demons._

 

Her moms would call the school and report her as ill and absent for the day. One or both of them would knock off work and stay at home. They would ask to lie down next to her on the bed or the sofa. They’d make tea and lunch and turn on jazz or old eighties rock and invariably, _Africa_ would come play some time in the afternoon and it would mark the day as better. Not always good. But better.

 

Forward.

 

But sometimes the bad days, the sadness — they hit you in the face, and you’re blindsided and confused and which way is up and which way is down and is it noon or night and what day of the week is it that ends in ‘y’?

 

Sometimes, when it’s far away in the rearview mirror, she can figure out why then and how.

 

But this time, she recognizes the cause while it still sits in the passenger seat like a terrorizing bogeyman. It sits so close and distracts her and she knows what it is long before she’s kicked it to the curb and driven off into the sunset with Toto blessing the rains down in Africa.

 

_“You’re lucky your dykey moms took you in. Nobody else wanted the kid that made her mom blow her dad’s brains out with a shotgun and then off herself. Nobody wants trash for a kid.”_

 

Belle _knows._ She knows that it’s all bullshit and that Tommy Hopper can go eat a dick. She knows that her mom and her aunt have her back with high school-level shenanigans, and she knows what her moms will say. What they have said. What they have always told her.

 

They love her. They wanted her in their lives. They chose her because they had no choice; she made a home in their hearts and that was that.

 

She _knows._ But sometimes knowing is a different beast than believing. Knowledge can change; it can adapt. But belief? When belief wavers, it isn’t a question of testing hypotheses and discovering evidence to capture a best approximation of reality. It’s a question of ontology. Of what makes you, well, _you._

 

Belle knows; sometimes her belief wavers. Sometimes it remains wobbly and topsy turvy and she doesn’t know where to stand or which way to fall. Sometimes her belief wavers because homophobic shittickets say horrible things and the words crawl into her head and poke and prod until she doubts, doubts, doubts. Until Jolene appears again, whispering lies into her ear.

 

This time, Jolene takes the form of a stupid farm boy who’s on the cusp of not graduating and whose father teaches P.E. at the elementary school, just as much of a narcissistic ass his son and his son’s best friend. Not to mention Champ fucking Hardy.

 

Shit eaters can eat shit.

 

Knowing all of this doesn’t change the fact that all she wants to do is curl up in her bed and never leave.

 

She calls the newspaper and tells her editor that she can’t take any assignments this week or the next and sorry for any inconvenience and she’ll let him know if anything changes. Her tone is level and her voice conveys none of the turmoil roiling inside her head, inside her chest. And he understands and is kind and doesn’t hear anything in her words or in her timbre that would make him think that anything is wrong.

 

Because Belle is good at saving face, at pretending her thoughts aren’t shredding her heart to pieces. She learned from the best.

 

Her mom is Nicole Haught, after all.

 

But her friends — at least Greg, Vanessa, and Mateo — don’t understand. They don’t know sadness as an old friend like Belle does.

 

So she lies in bed in her room. On the other side of the bedroom door, the apartment she shares with Alice is quiet. The clock on her nightstand reads _16:21._ Alice would be at the library studying or at the garage, hanging around Jamie.

 

She has another hour before she should at least try to pretend that she’s sort of okay.

 

Belle closes her eyes and tries to find her own Shangri-La, tries to escape the darkness that wants to drag her down.

 

When she wakes, three hours have passed and a figure towers over her.

 

It isn’t her Jolene. It isn’t shadows and sadness and suffering, oh my.

 

It’s Alice. Her cousin, her partner in crime, her best friend and ally. And Alice is warmth and security and family and love.

 

“C’mon, hoser. You gotta take a shower because you _reek_.”

 

Sometimes tough love.

 

“Five days in bed might do that to a person,” she grumbles.

 

“Yeah. And I’ve let you wallow for five days and now it’s time to remind you — _again —_ that Tommy Hopper is a real douche canoe who can suck a big one and choke. We’re going to the homestead tonight.”

 

“I don’t want to go to the homestead tonight.”

 

“Well, tough shit.”

 

The next thing she knows, her blankets are ripped away from her prone form and Alice has scooped her into her arms bridal-style.

 

“The hell, Holliday?!”

 

She squirms and squirms but she doesn’t _actually_ want to be dropped on her ass on their hardwood floors. Not to mention that Alice is stronger than she looks, and even if Belle does have a few inches on her, she makes it look like a piece of cake.

 

Of course, she knows where this is headed. It’s the clichéd shower scene of TV and cinematic history. The one where somebody gets carried to the bathroom and deposited under a shower head that’s cranked on with cold, cold water.

 

It’s supposed to be a wake-up call.

 

And damn it all to hell because it is effective at sharpening her senses, at reminding her that, Yes, Belle, there is a world beyond the comfort of your IKEA duvet.

 

The water is _cold_ and Belle can’t help but yelp when it hits her skin. Her tank top and pajama pants are saturated with water in no time and she stands under the beading water and glares at Alice.

 

The bitch just smirks and says, “We’re leaving in half an hour.”

 

There is no room for disagreement. Not when Alice uses her, _I’m the daughter of_ the _Doc Holliday and Wynonna freakin’ Earp_ voice.

 

She steps out of the bathroom and closes the door behind her, leaving Belle to strip off her sopping wet clothes and change the temperature of the water to something less frigid.

 

The sadness is like a storm now. It feels like she’s in the eye of it, waiting for shit to hit the fan again.

 

And she knows. Belle _knows_ that it isn’t an inevitable outcome. But she doesn’t yet believe. Not when there’s a gnawing pain inside her chest, tugging and twisting and pulling at her heartstrings. Not when there’s that voice inside her head, trying to sully all that is beautiful and good in her life.

 

Not when she knows that sometimes there is no explanation for when the sadness overtakes her. Because _depression_ is a beast and it’s never really gone. You never really shake it after it’s come for you once and doesn’t that just suck a big bag of deflated dicks.

 

(Rhetorical question; it does.)

 

But she washes her hair and tries to scrub away as much of the hurt as she can with her tea tree oil and mint body wash. The scent prickles her nose.

 

“Fifteen minutes!” she hears Alice shout and thank god that Mr. Beauregard from next door is hard of hearing. Otherwise, he’d be calling the cops on them at least once a week and _Sheriff Haught_ would not be pleased.

 

When Belle steps back into her bedroom with a towel wrapped around her body and another covering her hair, she finds a clean pair of jeans, her long-sleeve tee that says, _I backpacked across Europe and all I got was this stupid shirt,_ and her favorite cable knit sweater that’s closer to fraying than she wants to admit.

 

If she thought the shower was mildly invigorating, getting dressed is utterly exhausted. By the time she has pulled on her MTE Vans, she’s ready to flop back onto her bed and tell Alice to go to the homestead without her.

 

Maybe ask her moms to come here instead?

 

Because she remembers moments of her life before… before. But the most enriching memories are the ones that come after. The happy days learning to live and laugh and love with two amazing women and the absurd, family of choice that they’ve cobbled together.

 

But also the bad days, too.

 

Belle has had bad days all her life. Days like today (or the past five). When life is hard and the world outside is too bright and too loud and just too, too much. When the hurt just seems to grow and all you want to do is drift away to somewhere else or forget everything entirely.

 

Those days—

—those days that her moms stayed home with her to make sure that Belle knew their love. Knew that they would be there for her no matter what. In whatever ways she needed.

 

A balm for the wounded soul.

 

Healing.

 

“You ready, Haught Bologna?” Alice asks with a knock on the door. It’s enough to give Belle the strength to take a step backwards, away from her bed and towards her family.

 

“Let’s go, Haughtshot!”

 

And Belle knows what Alice is doing each time she needles her. She’s wheedling Belle towards jestful irritation, towards anything other than melancholy. She pokes fun at the time they tried to start a rock band when Belle starts playing her mom’s eighties playlist. And when she teases Belle with Haught puns, it has less to do with being the daughter of Wynonna Earp and more to do with reminding Belle that she’s a _Haught._ That she’s the daughter of Nicole and Waverly Haught.

 

It helps. Little by little. It helps.

 

At the homestead, Alice’s arm settles across Belle’s shoulders as they let themselves into the old house. Wynonna and Dolls are sitting on the sofa and Doc and Jeremy are at the table.

 

“Jeremy can’t lie for shit, dad,” Alice says as soon as they’re inside. “Stop playing poker with him.”

 

“I will have you know, baby girl, that Jeremy _requested_ that I play. He wishes to test the success of his attempts to school his tells.”

 

Jeremy just shrugs with a smile and goes back to staring intently at his cards. He looks kind of like an angry chipmunk, if Alice had to describe it.

 

She whispers the thought into Belle’s ear. And Belle laughs. She laughs and Alice grins wide and proud.

 

Little by little.

 

“C’mere, kid,” Wynonna says, a grin on her face that matches her daughter’s.

 

Belle slides out from under Alice’s arms and leans over the back of the couch. Wynonna reaches for her chin, turning Belle’s head left and then right and then left again. “Your face looks like something Waves fingerpainted when she was four.”

 

“Getting your face pummeled by a hockey player will do that.”

 

Wynonna throws a thumb in Dolls’ direction. “So will training with a dragon if you piss him off. He got me good one time.”

 

“You deserved it, Earp,” Dolls mutters.

 

“Kicking a guy in the nuts is always fair play,” she retorts, dropping her hand from Belle’s chin. Dolls just chuckles in response, shaking his head because _Earps._ Wynonna smirks before turning her attention back to the girls. “Anyways, your moms are out back singing kum ba yahs.”

 

Belle makes her way towards the back door off the kitchen, stopping when she realizes that Alice isn’t following. “You coming, Holliday?”

 

“I’m just the delivery girl tonight. I’ll join you later. Go spend time with your moms.”

 

She realizes what this is, now. This seemingly impromptu family gathering at the homestead on a random Thursday night.

 

It’s for _her._

 

And Waverly and Nicole are sitting around a campfire that glows warm and bright and comforting. The wood crackles and out here, with the scent of the evergreens and burning wood and a hint of old tobacco from Doc’s cigarillos in the air — it smells like home and family.

 

“Hey, monkey,” her mom greets.

 

They’ve dragged the bench off the back porch, pulled it in front of the fire instead of their usual chairs for nights like this.

 

“You wanna sit?” Her mama scoots towards one end of the bench, making space between her and Nicole. She pats a gloved hand on the seat.

 

Their faces are lit by yellow and orange flames. The fire throws flickering shadows this way and that, and the night is dark. But the stars and the moon light up the sky and her moms sit there, waiting. With love and patience and understanding. Her light in the dark.

 

She smiles softly.

 

(Jolene can burn in hell.)

 

She sits between her moms, fierce protectors on either side of her. And she knows they know; Belle’s a fighter, too. Because she’s here and she fights, inch by inch, little by little. It’s a process.

 

Sometimes it feels like taking two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes, frustratingly, it doesn’t feel like progress at all.

 

But when it’s like this? Surrounded by the people who love you? Arms around you in a tight embrace? Loving you without expectations, unconditionally and infinitely?

 

It’s okay.

 

“We’ve got you, monkey,” her mom whispers into the dark.

 

“Nous t'aimons, notre belle,” her mama whispers into the dark.

 

She hears them both and she begins to believe again.

 

Sometimes you need to take a step backwards.

 

Sadness — that deep, aching depression that holds you down, down, down until you can’t breathe and aren’t sure you even want to try anymore — is a fickle thing. It’s a wily changeling that makes the fight against it that much more challenging.

 

Everybody copes with it in different ways. The beast is ever-changing. The form of self-doubt may take that of a murderous bitch who bakes too much. Or it may take the shape of all the small town, small-minded shitheads, whose opinions shouldn’t matter but they do just the same.

 

(Words hurt. Usually worse than fists. Especially when they’re the words you tell yourself.)

 

Sometimes you need the quiet, reassuring presence of somebody who loves you. Sometimes you need the friend who will talk you through the darkness to guide you on your own way back home. And sometimes—

—sometimes you need the asshat who will drag you kicking and screaming back into the light of day. Who refuses to let you withdraw even further from the world. Sometimes you need the tough love.

 

The thing that’s consistent across the board?

 

The reminder that you are loved.

 

And you are here and you have stayed and you have fought and you are brave and you are whole, even if you’re a mosaic of broken pieces and shards of glass. You are here and you are loved.

 

You’re never alone when you fight your demons.

 

(You're never alone.)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I use the word 'sadness' quite a bit in this story. In reality, it isn't the same as depression. Depression is pervasive sadness. Sometimes it's inexplicable and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere and sometimes it's just always there, that dull ache that makes your bones feel heavy and everything hurts. Depression takes many forms, and it is so complicatedly individualized. My use of 'sadness' isn't to equate feeling sad with depression; rather, it's drawn from my own battle with my own Jolene, my own monsters.
> 
> Because sometimes, at the end of the day (throughout the day), I'm just _sad_. It doesn't leave. It weighs me down and holds me captive in my own mind. I am depressed but _sadness_ is what I feel. Overwhelming sadness.
> 
> We all have our demons. We all have our scars.
> 
> But we don't have to face them alone.
> 
> -
> 
> Remember: You matter. Always. You are loved and worthy of love. If you're struggling, please know that there are people here to listen, who care about you.
> 
> For Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255  
> Also: @_IMAlive @EarperSupport 
> 
> Your fandom family has your back.


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